Germany preparing for moon mission

Original Breitbart.com
The German space agency is reportedly preparing for a mission to the moon.
The head of the German Space Programme (DLR), Walter Doellinger, told the Financial Times Deutschland that it would be ready by 2013 to send an
unmanned space shuttle to orbit the earth's only natural satellite.

"We want to show that Germany has the know-how," he said, after the DLR presented its plans for the mission to the German parliament.

Completing a moon mission would catapult the country into the league of nations which can send spacecraft into orbit.

Doellinger said the federal government was mulling the project.

A high-ranking official in the economy ministry, Helge Engelhard, said Berlin was "not negatively disposed" towards a moon mission.

He added that the mission should have clear scientific or technical goals.

It is estimated that sending a shuttle to orbit the moon would cost Germany between 300 and 400 million euros (396 million to 528 million dollars).

Italy and Britain are also currently looking at sending unmanned shuttles around the moon.

Germany became the first nation to launch a man-made object into space in the 1940s when it tested the V-2 ballistic missile which it used towards the
end of World War II.

Maybe this will push the US to finally start exploring the rest of the galaxy.

The latest lunar orbiters would be the Indian 'Chandrayaan-1' in 2008 and a Chinese orbiter around the same time(late 2007).
The Indian orbiter has some NASA instruments on board I think. www.isro.org...en.wikipedia.org...

I care that we explore space. The only thing that will accomplish that is for us to start anothe space race. We need to feel like we are in a
competition in order to acceive anything. Look at the last moon race, if it weren't for the Russians we would still be looking at the moon and
wondering. That's just the way we are. We like to be the first, the best. America only likes a winner. We are the greatest country on Earth, its
because of competition.

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